Ray Stonada

Coleman should sit. Not even turning for the ball on deep attempts is wild. Throw the ball deep to Palmer, Moore and Samuel at WR, Kincaid and Hawes at TE, and Cook and Ty out of the backfield. See if we can develop a passing attack before the playoffs. We've got 8 games to get it going.

And on his other deep targets, he didn't even turn around in time to make a play on the ball.

That's definitely the easiest path... but it doesn't feel that likely. We are making basic mistakes--not getting Josh a receiver? refusing to develop a downfield passing game?--which we didn't make in 2020 or 2021. Yes we beat KC. But maybe we're so micro-focused on beating KC that these other younger teams who play nothing like that are suddenly just as big a threat. Anyway, we're all spinning out a little this week.

Here's a comment made by a Giants fan on the Athletic which I think encapsulates how we are all feeling: "As another NYG fan who would love to see the Bills and Allen throttle Mahomes, Kelsey et.al., I don’t think McDermott can beat Reid. I would be feeling like I am rolling the stone up the hill again knowing it’s going to roll over me again on the way down if I was Josh Allen."

I'm almost rooting for the wheels to fall off to get us closer to regime change, than another season of this. The last time we made a clear improvement from one season to the next was the 2020 season.

Man, there are Wikipedia pages devoted to single Andy Reid plays. When was the last time the Bills ran a play where a defense was totally fooled? The long TD to John Brown in the Dallas Thanksgiving game?

I think Brady’s plays usually have one guy it’s designed to get the ball to. The Samuel routes are just clear outs, which is crazy to me. End of the Ravens and Dolphins games when we abandoned Brady’s scheme and got into the two minute drill Josh was slinging it and finding people all over the field.

It really bums me out to see him struggling like this. We NEED to get him some receivers and a scheme that lets him shine. Your point is perfect. The guy leading the league in least sacks the last two years didn't magically change. Downfield, no one is uncovering, not even hot routes. It's an epic fail. Couple times yesterday, Samuel looks like he's jogging while Josh is running for his life. Keon has no field awareness. Elijah Moore seems a bit better but not much. And Palmer out.

And the crazy thing is McDaniel called the timeout because he smelled the rat. And they run it anyway! Total fail.

Thank you. Without a passing game that can function independently we won't get where we want to go.

Okay, maybe "better than" is overstating it. But right know the Bills need to change the way they play offense. Losses will provoke them to do that better than wins. It might even mean a change of OC. No trade deadline for that.

I knew I would get killed for saying that in the postgame thread. And I probably will here too. But... here's my reasoning: Losses like this are actually better than wins right now. Right now, wins hide a flawed, one-dimensional offense. In a game like this, we actually have to work on throwing the ball. Even with a terrible receiving corps, Allen's passing stats in the second half extrapolate to 400 yards and 4 TDs for a game. And he did the same in the Ravens game. Getting down big is the only thing that gets the Bills out of their scheme. We need to get out of our scheme, get back to being a 3D football team. I know it's like pulling teeth watching this staff try to learn from what's actually happening, instead of assuming their schemes are brilliant. And Beane is guilty of malpractice with the receiving room and not getting a real #1. And, yes, I'm bummed we probably won't get the one seed in a year when KC and Baltimore won't either. But the young teams are a LOT hungrier than we are for regular season wins. NE, Indy and Denver are tasting their first success after years in the wilderness. That's the kind of motivation that sometimes drops once they get to the playoffs--they're playing with house money at that point. In 6 wins this year our team has looked completely different than in the 3 losses. When our motivation isn't there, the coaches can't save us. But, all we care about is the playoffs, when our motivation will be high. However, we need is to be a more balanced team by then, not a team that can't complete a pass 25 yards downfield. Our only hope this season is to develop a downfield passing attack to go with our run game (and get guys back on D). Adversity is the only way we're going to get there. Plenty of teams have found themselves after ten games and went on a run to the Lombardi. Freaking out now and starting a rebuild mentality is not going to get us there. And by the way, our coach and GM are not going to be replaced unless we go like 5-12 for two or three years in a row. So all we have is the hope that bad losses help them recognize we need to be able play real NFL offense and not think they're going to outsmart the league with three tight ends on every down. The best teams have 2 losses. We have 3. Teams as stacked as the Rams have 3 as well. A lot can still swing if we fix our approach. Finally: every week, people predict how teams are going to do for the rest of the year, based on how they look this week. We have no idea. So yeah, the Pats look good and had a great win against the Bucs. They could easily stumble, have some bad injury luck, or run out of gas. So don't panic.

We are 1 game out of the one seed We don't look great but let's not panic

Josh looks super hungover or something

At least our offense is getting some rest now